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EFFECTIVENESS OF GED BEHAVIORAL SKIN SHOCK TREATMENT
AT JRC: CHARTS FOR ALL STUDENTS WHO WERE STARTED ON
GED TREATMENT DURING 2003-2005

Abstract

Exhibits 1-4* show 35 charts, each of which shows the weekly totals of aggressive behaviors for 35 different students. Each chart is for the exact same 100-weeks time period during 2003-2004. Each student was treated for aggression with behavioral skin shock treatment, using the Graduated Electronic Decelerator  (“GED”), at some point during that period. The charts are arranged in order according to the point in time at which the GED was introduced. In 72% of the cases, as soon as the GED treatment was added to the ongoing positive programming, the behavior dropped to a zero level within a few weeks. In the remaining 28% of the cases, although the behavior did not drop to zero immediately, the GED had an obvious and beneficial effect. These are not a selected group of charts; instead, they represent every single student for whom the GED was initiated for aggression during the two year period. Exhibits 5-8* and 9-12* show essentially the same results for health dangerous behaviors and major disruptive behaviors respectively for the same 35 students plus one additional student. Exhibits 13-15 summarize the effectiveness of the GED in bar graph form.

The Behavior Frequency Charts
(Exhibits 1-12)

The charts in Exhibits 1-4 show the weekly total number of aggressive acts recorded for all thirty five (35) students whose treatment program was supplemented with behavioral skin shock, using the GED, between May 2003 and May 2005. Each chart represents one student. It is important to note that this group of 35 students was not selected in any fashion and contains all students whose treatment programs was supplemented with GED skin shock treatment between those dates.

Each dot on each chart depicts the total number of aggressive behaviors that that student displayed in one week. Each total was measured throughout all 24 hours of the day and all seven days of the week. The left-hand side of the chart is the scale for the weekly totals, starting at zero. Notice that each bold horizontal line on the chart increases by a factor of 10.  Successive bold horizontal lines, therefore, represent frequencies of 1/week, 10/week, 100/week, and so on up to 1,000,000/week. The bottom of the chart is the time scale and shows successive calendar weeks. Each chart can contain data for 100 weeks (almost two years). Each chart has the same time scale and each shows the weekly totals of the aggressive behaviors over exactly the same time period.  

Some of charts have data (dots) across the entire chart, indicating that those students were enrolled at JRC for during the entire 2 year period covered by these charts. Other charts show no data during the first part of the chart. Blank vertical weekly lines (with no data points)  mean that that student was not enrolled at JRC on those weeks. The student enrolled at JRC just before the first weekly dot appears on the chart.

The red vertical line on each chart shows the point in time at which the GED skin shock procedure was introduced as a supplement to the ongoing positive programming. The red line separates the data for the period when positive programming only was used (the dots to the left of the red line) from the data for the period when positive programming was supplemented with skin shock (the dots to the right of the line). For the average (median) student, positive programming was used for nearly a year before the treatment was supplemented with the skin shock and the range was 1 month to 2 years.

Exhibits 5-8 and Exhibits 9-12 are similar charts for the same students, but for their health dangerous and major disruptive behaviors, respectively.

There are several important aspects of these charts.

1. First, the very fact that we do have these charts is significant. We base our treatment decisions based upon them. The charts represent careful data collection over 24 hours a day in all environments. We know of no other program that collects data so systematically.
    

2. Another is the dramatic immediate reduction of the problematic behavior that the GED treatment causes in almost all cases. In 72% of the aggression charts (Exhibits 1-4), the weekly frequency of the behavior drops to a zero level within a few weeks. In the remaining 28 % of the cases, although the behavior did not drop to zero immediately, the GED produced an obvious and beneficial effect.
    

3. We know of no other combination of treatment procedures that produces results so successfully and certainly not as immediately and completely. These dramatic changes that the GED treatment produces usually follow months or even years of positive programming at JRC that had not proven sufficient, by themselves, to produce a clinically significant result.
    

4. Some of the charts (see Students 4, 12, and 14, for example) show sustained periods without any aggression at all, after the introduction of the GED.  In many of these cases the use of the skin shock was gradually removed (“faded “) from the students’ programs entirely.
    

5. If we compare the weekly means of the aggression data for entire period before skin shock treatment to the weekly means for the entire period after the introduction of the skin shock treatment (and up until May 2005) the average (mean) improvement was 96%! Overall 29 of the 35 (83%) had an improvement of 97% or greater and 32 of the 35 (91%) had an improvement 90% or greater. The three students that did not meet those criteria still had an overall improvement between 58% and 84%. No matter how one looks at the numbers, the introduction of the skin shock device was remarkably successful.
    

6. What the charts do not show are other important changes that took place, such as:
    

   • There was a total elimination of the need for emergency restraint procedures that all of these students had required, upon occasion, prior to the introduction of the skin shock.
      

   • At some point, either before or after the introduction of the skin shock procedure, all of these students were successfully weaned off of all psychotropic medication.  Twenty-nine of the 35 students whose aggression charts are shown had come to JRC using psychotropic medication that had been prescribed for behavior management.
      

   • All students gained increased access to the community and to their families. Because their behaviors were so much improved after the GED was introduced, they were now able to go on many field trips and successful home visits.
      

   • All of the students were able, as a result of the improvements in behavior that the GED had caused, to participate consistently in their academic program and most then made huge strides.

The Bar Graphs
(Exhibits 13-15)

The “Before GED” data were calculated by taking the average number of behaviors exhibited for each student for the entire period prior to the use of the GED (and back to May 2003). These 36 numbers, one for each student, were then averaged in order to provide an overall average weekly rate before the GED was added. The “With GED” data were compiled in the same manner, but were taken from the point at which the GED was started up to May 2005.

The following table shows the results:

Weekly Average Across All Students who Started GED 2003-5

The following bar graphs are a graphical display of the data shown in the above table:

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